


Stretch Your Arms Out And Finally Face Me

by eigengrau



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prose-y stuff, Stilinski Family Feels, Weird little angst drabble, Written in half an hour, fugitives!sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eigengrau/pseuds/eigengrau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have to leave town in September. Be honest, Stiles bites out bitterly as they speed down the dark highway, it’s more like fleeing, isn’t it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stretch Your Arms Out And Finally Face Me

**Author's Note:**

> My friend was like, "Wow, if you think about it, Stiles probably looks pretty sketchy to Sheriff Stilinski, cause he's always at crime scenes and stuff," and I just kind of ran with the idea of, "What if Stiles and Derek got falsely accused of murder and had to fake their deaths and leave town?" Things escalated pretty fast, obviously.
> 
> Title from the song "The Bed Song," by Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra.

They have to leave town in September. _Be honest_ , Stiles bites out bitterly as they speed down the dark highway, _it’s more like fleeing, isn’t it?_

 

It is. But Derek doesn’t say anything, just glares ahead at the road. The headlights reflect off the yellow line that divides the asphalt in two, and Stiles is caught between staring at the way the light turns his eyes opaque and shining and staring at the blood on the cuff of his grey henley. The deep cut in Stiles palm throbs under the bandage he hastily wrapped around his hand, and in the blackness of the car he can see the red glint on Derek’s nails. He wonders absently if the blood on his discarded sweatshirt looks the same as the stain on Derek’s sleeve.

 

The next thing he knows he’s gasping for Derek to pull over and stumbling to the side of the road to throw up.

 

They drive on through the night, the road cradled between thick dark strips of pine forest. They are the only car on the road, the only lights they see for hours their own, brightening up signs every few miles for Gas Food Lodging. They drive until the sun starts to rise over the trees, rose and orange and cold white, and then they finally pull into a deserted rest stop. Derek grabs an extra coat from the backseat and tosses it to Stiles as he gets out of the car and disappears onto the concrete pavilion to stand under the flickering lights, dogged by swarms of moths and mosquitos. Stiles balls it up into a pillow and tries to force himself to sleep, but the insides of his eyelids are branded with imagined images of what’s going to happen in the morning. Imagining Scott’s face when Deaton tells him the lies they’d concocted in five minutes. Imagining Isaac, Erica, Boyd. Jackson. Lydia.

 

Imagining his father’s eyes when the search dogs finally find his sweatshirt and Derek’s leather jacket, torn to pieces and stained with blood that the lab tests will prove without a doubt is theirs.

 

It’s not fair. It’s not _fair_ , that his father will have to live through not only his wife’s death but his son’s, too. The fact that it’s a lie only makes it that much worse. Stiles feels his eyes start to sting and bile rise in his throat, and he curses the alpha pack that did this to them, that has driven them to this.

 

Derek comes back with a bag of Fritos and two bottles of vending machine water. He’s washed his hands, and they look clean and pale in the half-light of the early morning.

 

 _We can’t go back, can we,_ Stiles says, because although he already knows the answer this is the quietest he’s been in years and he needs to say something, anything, to fill the silence.

 

Derek stares at the steering wheel and mutters that they should try to get some sleep. They need to be over the border and into Oregon by noon.

 

Stiles closes his eyes and tries not to panic in the passenger seat of the Camaro.

 

 

They squat in an abandoned building somewhere near ____. It’s cold, and the floor of the empty warehouse is hard and potted with holes. Derek produces a moth-eaten sleeping bag from the trunk, because of course his car is fully equipped with emergency supplies. Stiles makes a quip about boy scouts, but it falls flat in the high-ceilinged space, echoing off the walls, and the sick feeling in Stiles’ stomach only gets worse. Rats scurry towards them, yellow teeth bared as they try to steal the last few chips from the crinkling bag from the rest stop. Derek flashes red eyes at them and growls and they squeak in indignation and run back into the dark corners.

 

Stiles tries to give Derek the sleeping bag, protesting that he’s the one doing all the driving and that he deserves to get in at least a few hours of rest, but Derek just frowns and orders Stiles in. When he squeezes in beside him, pressed against his back, Stiles bites his tongue. He wraps his arms around Stiles and only then does Stiles realize that he’s been shaking. He wonders how long it’s been going on, and if it will go away.

 

He wakes up hours later, with Derek’s lips in his hair, feeling warm and hollow and lost.

 

 

They make it to Seattle two days later, buying a hotel room and a trip to the Laundromat with cash. Stiles’ duffel bag sits on the floor, filled with clothes he’d stuffed inside in his frenzy, and he stares at his cell phone where it lies on the dirty pillow. The screen flashes with unread text messages and unheard voicemail. Stiles deletes all of them without listening, save for one.

 

 _Stiles, please pick up,_ it goes. _Just answer. Or show up at the house. Whatever it is, I won’t be angry._

_I know the situation looks bad, but I believe in you. You’re my son. You’re not what they’re saying you are, I know; we can get you clear, I swear, no matter what’s going on I’ll be there for you. Even if-_

_If-_

_Please, just come back. I’m-_

_I can’t lose you too_ , it says, and then hangs up. Stiles saves the message. There’s a tiny irrational part of him that is worried he could forget what his father’s voice sounds like. There’s another part of him that is terrified that the fear isn’t irrational at all.

 

He takes a shower while Derek is in the other room and ends up gasping under the spray, like maybe he can drown in the water.

 

When he calms down and gets out, towel wrapped around his waist, he sees the claw marks that scrape down the far wall but pretends not to notice. Derek glances at him gratefully and offers him a slice of pizza, but Stiles isn’t hungry.

 

They crawl into the creaking bed that night without talking, but Stiles ends up curled against Derek’s chest again, feeling the steady thump of their heartbeats as he drifts off to sleep.

 

 

It’s hard to get a job when you’ve got ADD and no meds, so Derek ends up as their sole provider, working odd jobs and slaving away part-time at a garage. Stiles finally manages to get hired as a janitor in an office building in November. His resume is a mish-mash of lies about his age and background but the company clearly isn’t very responsible, because within a week of applying he’s standing in the empty hallway at midnight on a Tuesday, holding a vacuum cleaner and wearing a nametag that tells the world that he’s called Jimmy.

 

By January they can afford to get a condo.

 

It’s small, but it’s a step up from the sleeping bag, the motel, and the shitty futon in the super-cheap apartment they’ve been squatting in. They both work the late shifts at their respective jobs, and Stiles makes a running joke out the fact that they’re _creatures of the night_. He jokes less these days. Derek doesn’t blame him. They’re both tired a lot. They don’t watch television- not since Stiles accidentally caught a clip on the nine o’clock news about two boys from Beacon Hills, California, missing under mysterious circumstances, both wanted in connection with multiple murders.

 

Derek has caught him listening to his phone more than once, but they don’t talk about it. That suits them both just fine.

 

There are days when Stiles can’t drag himself out of bed, days when his mind is in another place entirely. It’s another curse of not being able to control his ADD; he wanders, unfocused, brain stuck and fixating on memories as if he could somehow change the past. It overwhelms him, sometimes.

 

They share the bed and Derek holds him, more out of habit than of a need to stay warm or to stop Stiles’ shakes, which have calmed down to just a tremor in his hands.

 

It’s six in the morning in February when Derek comes back from the garage, face and arms streaked with oil and dust and grease. Stiles is sitting at their tiny kitchen table and looks up at him, the lights in the condo off, the glow of a cold sunrise leaking through the blinds.

 

They stare at each other for a moment before Stiles stands up and presses his lips to Derek’s. He leads him to the bed they share, and they lie together while the sun comes up over their backs.

 

 

For Stiles’ eighteenth birthday they lie in bed and Derek draws patterns on his skin, tracing the familiar territory with his fingertips. _We should do this more often_ , Stiles murmurs, and Derek smiles against his shoulder.

 

They’re not the same way that they were a year ago. Stiles talks less, smiles less. Derek talks a little more. There are wrinkles around Stiles’ eyes that make him look years older than he really is. They’re living, here; scraping by but living.

 

Derek’s phone rings, a number that only one person has, and they both freeze and stare. It rings again.

 

 _It’s probably a wrong number_ , Stiles breathes, because hope is a thing he can’t afford anymore.

 

Derek answers and holds the phone to his ear. He says _okay_ and hangs up.

 

 _Deaton,_ he says, and Stiles closes his eyes. _He says it’s safe for us to go back_.

 

Stiles can’t breathe.

 

 

It’s September in Beacon Hills and the town looks the same way it did the night they left. A year gone, and it looks like average Wednesday- but that shouldn’t be a surprise. To everyone else, it is just a normal day. The world doesn’t revolve around two fugitives from the law.

 

Or rather, two fugitives who’ve been exonerated by the capture of the real perpetrators of the murders that they were framed for.

 

The Camaro drives slowly down the street. Stiles chest feels tighter and tighter the closer they get to their destination. Derek holds his hand over the gear shift and squeezed encouragingly.

 

They pull up into the driveway, gravel crunching under their tires. Stiles stares out the windshield at the house before them and Derek urges him out of the door.

 

The walk up to the porch feels like it takes a million years, and when Stiles finally reaches where he’s going he stands there, frozen. He glances back at Derek in the car. The werewolf nods.

 

Stiles takes a deep breath and forces himself to press the doorbell.

 

Sheriff Stilinski’s hair has gone grey. For some reason that’s the first thing Stiles notices, instead of the look on his father’s face. He can’t describe that look in words. Or, well, he could, but none of them would be the right ones.

 

 _Hi, Dad,_ he says.

 

The Sheriff throws open the screen door and grabs Stiles like a dying man clutching a life preserver.

 

It’s the first time since he left that Stiles has cried.

 

 

They stand over a slab of grey stone. Stiles can’t help but laugh.

 

 _I never thought I’d get to see my own grave_ , he says.

 

 _Mine isn’t half as nice,_ Derek’s hand is warm in his. _Lucky you._

 

They’re going to have to fill out a lot of paperwork. It turns out that being presumed dead involves a lot of forms that need to be submitted in triplicate. Stiles’ face is still smarting from where Scott had punched him when he showed up at his door, and Derek’s cheek bares a matching bruise courtesy of Stiles’ dad. There’s a lot that they’ve missed. There’s a lot that they’re going to have to explain.

 

It’s September in Beacon Hills, and Stiles and Derek are alive again.


End file.
